


build me a star in your forehead

by starspecters



Category: Game Grumps
Genre: First Kiss, Getting Together, M/M, could be taken as Band AU but it wasn't rly intended, this is kind of rushed but i hope u enjoy!!, trying to find out how to write rubberbang [shrug emoji]
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:39:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starspecters/pseuds/starspecters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There's something overwhelming about the post-concert experience, Ross decides. Something that feels foreign and uncomfortable, layers itself against him like a second skin, despite the fact that he wasn't the one who performed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	build me a star in your forehead

Ross is caught up in the thrill of it all, of the light-reflecting fog and the low bass and the way that Dan’s hair looks swept up to perch messily on top of his head, hair spilling out and around his head like a living, breathing _thing_. The curls resting lazily on the nape of his neck flirt dangerously with the tips of Ross’s fingertips when they grasp Dan’s shoulder, nails grazing the leather covering it with adrenaline-induced risk that has the rest of Ross’s body responding in anxiety-ridden fidgeting.

 

“ _Ross_ ,” Dan says, in the way that he always does, with the exasperated veneer and thinly veiled sincerity. He clutches onto Ross like he is about to tumble off of the starboard of a ship, like creeper vines to a garden wall. Absently, Dan’s thumbs smoothen out the folds in his shirt, and Ross’s heart thunders on because of the light-reflecting fog, the low bass, Dan’s ridiculous hairdo and the hands that hang off his clothes like commas. “ _Breathe._ ”

 

He does.

 

When Dan’s sure Ross isn’t about to tip over messily onto the floor like a _Jenga_ tower, he releases him, and Ross idly contemplates the fading warmth on his _Transformers_ t-shirt, fingers the thought like a loose string of fabric hanging off one of his well-worn hoodies, along with the realization that Dan’s eyes are still framed by his infamous happy crinkles.

 

Waving his hands with emphatic enthusiasm, Ross says, “The… thing – concert – was awesome.”

 

His hands are no longer fiddling, instead clutching at the empty air near his hipbones, but where his wrists hang limp and idle his mind picks up, neurons firing in quick bursts like tapping nails and wringing palms. Between the misfiring electricity and music skating off the walls like skipping stones, it’s hard for his mouth to keep up, so he goes for something simple, something vague and understated that still gets the point across.

 

“Yeah,” Dan says, breathlessly, and gazes off like he’s remembering when he was a gawky teenager and his only microphone was a barrel-shaped hairbrush, and Ross presses down the urge to pull him back down to Earth in order to watch the lines bunched up around his brow line smoothen out.

 

As if Dan could be confined to one person, Ross thinks. As if Dan could be confined to one _planet._

 

When Dan turns back to him, Ross feels once again overwhelmed with the environment and the people – and, hey, no one ever told him how _hot_ spotlights were, that even in their vicinity, even hidden backstage where Dan had tucked him and the rest of them, he still feels it crawling between his collarbones and lodging uncomfortably along the back of his neck – and the rising tension along his shoulders only proves to him that he belongs curled behind a computer screen or an art tablet. Still, with Dan’s gaze bearing down on him like high beams, the tightness around the corners of his mouth eases out into something softer and more genuine.

 

“I almost forgot it was your first Ninja Sex Party concert, dude! I’m glad you liked it!” Dan’s knuckle knocks lightly on the knob of Ross’s shoulder, right where the seam meshes into a more visible arc that dips into the sleeve. Ross’s heart consequently drags itself through the bone cage surrounding it and drips into the acid lining his stomach.

 

“Yeah,” he manages, although even the most basic of human interaction seems slippery at best in his current state. “’Cause it’s not like I’ve been a big fan of yours for years or anything.” Part of him is still afraid that the cadence to his words will give away the pulse hammering beneath the skin on his wrist, and he faintly thinks that he can’t do another concert, not now, not with the echoes of the hall bearing down on him and his newfound fascination with the line in Dan’s eyebrow.

 

Megawatt smile still in place like it always is, even when he dies one too many times in a Mario level, even when his energy grinds and fades out into wisps in the late hours of the morning, Dan takes the sarcasm in stride, laugh bouncing and ricocheting off the backs of his teeth like a pinball game. “Do you want an autograph?”

 

“Nah, I still have the last birthday card you got me,” Ross says, rocking slightly on the balls of his feet. “Good for forgery and making a shit-ton of money.” He can’t remember talking being this hard since high school. _Jesus._

 

Shoulders quivering, Dan does something that can only be described as giggling, and Ross imagines he’s still riding the high of being onstage in front of thousands of people, the way that Ross is uncomfortably and unsteadily balancing his way through the ripple effects of Dan’s mere presence.

 

It’s kind of pathetic, in a way.

 

“Ross,” Dan says for the second time in the past few seconds, or minutes, or however long it’s been - because God knows that Ross’s perception of time is well and thoroughly _fucked_ – but this time it’s serious, the edges of his tone and expression threatening on determined, brows curving downward and teeth gnawing idly on his bottom lip.

 

If it wasn’t be the way Dan looked at him, like a particularly puzzling math problem or the way he looked when Brian went on another spiel about relativity or random _Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy_ trivia, Ross might have ended up parallel to his shoelaces, but as it is, Dan accidentally manages to pin him in place with sheer concentration. “Yeah, Dan?”

 

“I just got off stage after performing in front of an awesome fucking crowd; my adrenaline is high as shit, and my common sense is next to zero.”

 

“Uh,” Ross starts. He’s unsure of how he’s supposed to respond, but the look Dan sends him tells him he isn’t finished. Thankfully, he’s otherwise preoccupied with the way the tips of Dan’s shoes have found their way to his, the pressure against his sneakers a more physical representation of the distraction his racing thoughts had been providing before.

 

“I kind of want to kiss you right now,” Dan says breathlessly, like the child he used to be with big dreams and thermal hairbrushes, like the star struck expression he still gets when he looks out on a sea of fans, like he’s found himself nestled somewhere between Mercury and Venus without an inkling as to how he should get back down. Ross’s heart skitters like skipping stones, body thrown back into nervous activity, and he feels like a computer without a functioning fan for cool down.

 

“So do it,” Ross mumbles weakly, and he wonders if Dan can understand him over the cacophony around them, with his accent more prominent than ever in his current state.

 

Nevertheless, Dan presses close, ducks down and grazes his lips against Ross’s, flooding and melting against his senses, and Ross presses a hand to Dan’s ribcage and thinks, _here is the music_ , digs his palm into the curve of his hipbone and thinks, _here is the harmony_ , like he’s some asshole who knows shit about music.

 

With an eager tug, Ross pulls Dan down to Earth, his index finger hooked into Dan’s collar like a makeshift fishing rod.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> been trying to write grumps forever and i finally got around to it [blows a single party horn]. kinda short but i hope you enjoyed nonetheless! it was fun to write, and i'm hoping to write more grumps in the future. feedback is always appreciated, and if you'd like to shoot me a line or something, you can find me at mort3mer.tumblr.com !


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